Amsterdam Centre for Urban History

Award: Honorary Doctorate for Emily Hemelrijk

5 April 2015

The Faculty Board of Arts at the University of Gothenburg has decided to appoint Prof. Emily Hemelrijk (Ancient History) to be Honorary Doctor of Philosophy.

Emily Hemelrijk is professor of Ancient History at the University of
Amsterdam. Her area of specialisation is the history of women in the Roman
world, on which she has published extensively. Emily Hemelrijk’s first book,
Matrona Docta: Educated Women in the Roman Elite from Cornelia to Julia
Domna (Routledge 1999), is an exhaustive study of the education of upper
class women in Roman society from the second century BC to the third century AD
and of the roles available to educated women as patrons of learning and culture
and as authors.

Her forthcoming book, Hidden Lives, Public Personae: Women and Civic Life
in the Roman West, will be published by Oxford University Press this year.
It deals with the lives and civic roles of wealthy women in provincial towns, a
subject which has previously received little attention. Emily Hemelrijk’s
research ranges widely and she deals with material from the provinces as well as
from Rome. In her discussions and interpretations she draws on epigraphic and
iconographical evidence in addition to textual sources.

Emily Hemelrijk’s previous involvement with the University of Gothenburg
includes her participation in FokusRom, a long-standing collaboration between
researchers in Latin and Ancient History at the Universities of Gothenburg and
Lund. In the spring of 2014 she was guest researcher at the Department of
Historical Studies and in that capacity gave several lectures and seminars on
her current research, which were very much appreciated by students and staff.
She also met with master’s students and doctoral candidates and advised them on
their research projects. Emily Hemelrijk has made a considerable contribution to
the field of women’s history in Antiquity and her work on the public roles of
Roman women has been widely recognised as ground-breaking.